The invention relates to a vessel for an electro furnace, particularly a type furnace with walls consisting entirely or at least partially, in the area above the melting zone, merely of joined-together, exposed cooling elements, with an upper edge on which the cover of the vessel rests, in which the edge is connected by means of supports extending on the outside of the vessel wall parallel to the vessel rotary axis, to the support frame of the vessel bottom.
Furnace vessels for metal melting furnaces with a heat-constant wall, which is entirely or at least partially built of cooling blocks, are known, for example, from DE-OS 27 45 622 and DE-OS 27 36 385.
With that type of furnace it is necessary to replace, periodically, the cooling elements which are joined into blocks and which form the vessel wall.
However, in the case of electro furnaces of conventional design, with walls having a refractory lining, the refractory lining must also be regularly renewed.
The replacement of the vessel wall in today's construction of electro furnace is time consuming and expensive. The vessel wall is ordinarily surrounded by a support frame essentially consisting of supports extending parallel to the vessel rotary axis (DE-OS 28 19 836--position 30; DE-OS 26 40 598--positions 44, 46, and 48). The support frame, however, prevents restoration work from being done from the outside, and therefore, the repair crew must work in the interior of the vessel.
In many cases it is more advantageous, for work on refractory linings, if the vessel is accessible for the maintenance crew from the outside. Additionally, various aid mechanisms may, furthermore, be more conveniently installed if the furnace is not necessarily cooled off to a degree it would have to be cooled for work to be done in its interior and, finally, in certain cases the removed material may easily be removed towards the outside.
A method for removing vessel walls from an electric arc furnace is known from DE-OS 26 40 598, in which the support frame is lifted off the furnace with the aid of a crane (page 17, line 23 et. seq.; page 18, first paragraph and FIG. 3). To this end the jacket construction may be disconnected from the support frame 12 of the lower part; it is obvious that such work is very expensive, adding to operational cost. Furthermore, the entire heavy jacket construction is handled which may sometimes be cumbersome in the narrow space available in the furnace sheds.